Data backup

[kunjuttan]

Hi All,

I need a urgent help.I have to take full FS backup of one of my HP-UX11.31 server.I have one tape drive connected to this server.
Please let me know how can i take the backup.Total data will be around 180GB

[Torsten.]

For data backup you should use tar/pax/cpio or a dedicated backup software, for a backup of the OS itself you should use IGNITEs make_tape_recovery.

[kunjuttan]

Thanx Torsten
i know only tar...bt can i use tar as my data is more than 150GB..
How can i use pax/cpio..
can i use fbackup??
if yes can u pls provide me the exact command too,,,

[Jose Mosquera]

Hi,

My experience with fbackup/frecover is very good and reliable. Recoveries tend to be fast because it has an index (very useful), you can easily force a recovery point of origin other than the path, you can control the life of the tape (best practices) through a counter option, you can define easily inclusions and exclusions, you have a lot of warning messages and errors (documented), and more ...
Please see the online documentation for both:
#man fbackup
#man frecover

Be sure to check the use of the command "mt" very useful for rewinding and ejecting tapes depending on the final return code from the previous command (ie: fbackup)
#man mt

The greatest inconvenience of the fbackup/frecover is that they are HP-UX only, can not behave to other Unix flavors. Other commands such as "tar" or "cpio" are cross-platform.

Also tell you that I usually do backups larger capacity (GB) that you indicate, you are limited to the maximum capacity of your tape device, I guess it will be an Ultrium DLT-[n]. I suggest you avoid backups in compressed mode.

Rgds.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] I have to take full FS backup of one
> of my HP-UX11.31 server. [...]

Why? Define "full FS backup".

> [...] one tape drive [...]

Not a very detailed description of anything.

> [...] can i use tar as my data is more than
> 150GB..

Some "tar" programs have problems with files
which are bigger than 2GB or 8GB. I don't
know of any limitations on the total size of
an archive.

man tar

Or run the experiment. (This is generally a
good idea before relying on any backup
scheme.)

For a "tar" program with no serious file-size
limitations:

http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/

> How can i use pax/cpio..

man pax
man cpio

> can i use fbackup??

Probably.

man fbackup


> [...] you are limited to the maximum
> capacity of your tape device, [...]

Really? None of these programs can deal with
multiple tapes? Really?

> [...] I suggest you avoid backups in
> compressed mode.

Why? (Do you own a tape manufacturer?)

[sarfaraj ahmad]

you can take file system backup through fbackup or sam.

example:
# fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -i /home

check your tape path by
# ioscan -fnC tape

or you can follow sam to take backup, that will also take backup by fbackup.

[Ismail Azad]

Hi kunjuttan,

tar and cpio are backup utilities for heterogenous environments. fbackup and frecover typically used on HPUX and it is becoming deprecated and being replaced by pax as pax in turn supports other formats. As mentioned before, tar/cpio normally have problems with files greater than 2GB as per HP documentation. In those terms fbackup/frecover is a good option.

If you are looking for a command :-

fbackup -f -i

You can add an index file too. If it's multiple filesystems , you can make use of the graph file.

Regards
Ismail Azad

[kunjuttan]

Thsnk you all for your valuable replies..
I need one more info..
Can I able to take the backup of a filesystem in another NFS mounted filesystem using fbackup.

[Dennis Handly]

>Can I able to take the backup of a filesystem in another NFS mounted filesystem using fbackup?

I don't see why not but it may be very slow and possibly wear out some of your tapes that need to be kept streaming.
I.e. better to do that on the NFS server.

[kunjuttan]

May I know the command for the same.